To ask what your biggest regret in life is?

[SylviaPlath1984]

Or even what you feel you might regret in the future if you don't do it soon?

I regret not taking school more seriously or trying harder, not making more of myself.

What about you?

Not saving more at a younger age.

Marriage

Being fat for the whole of my 20s. It affected my confidence and stopped me doing so many things. I only started to lose the weight in my early 30s and everything has been much better, I feel like my 20s were wasted.

Decades trying to be thin when I don't have that body type. If I'd just accepted being a healthy but still hippy bmi of 23 I'd have saved myself twenty years of ridiculous diets.

Otherwise, no regrets. Life hasn't worked out how I envisaged it but that's what makes it interesting.

@sunnysidegold

When I finished uni I really wanted to learn piano. My mum poo pooed the idea and told me it was too late in life to learn. My thinking was, at 23 with maybe ten years I could maybe be able to play a few tunes.

But I never learned. Now I'm forty and feel I could have had 17 years of piano playing behind me now.

I know I'm an adult, and I was an adult when I first had the idea, but my confidence wasn't great and I just took mum's answer as gospel
.

Start now, sunnyside! There's a Chinese proverb: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

3 major things that have had such a negative impact on my life.

1. Not getting with DH sooner, knew him from 16 not together until 28
2. Wasting my 20s feeling so depressed about being on my own
3. Allowing my weight to contintually gain to the point where I am a disgsuting 6 stone overweight.

I can only change the last one and am half a stone down with 5.5 to go...

Cant remember if I posted this....
But I regret not having the opportunity to do amateur dramatics earlier. We moved to another part of the country and I joined an am dram group. It's the most fun you can have without being arrested. I went along to ask if they needed help stacking chairs or shifting scenery and I was drafted into the chorus. Ended up playing Julie Jordan in 'Carousel', Anna in 'The King and I' and then had amazing fun playing comic roles in non musicals. When this *lockdown ends, try it. It's honestly a brilliant thing to do.

Not standing up to bully sister earlier. She destroyed my confidence which impacted friendships relationships and career and all to make herself feel superior.

Not working harder and saving money before I had DD

Not looking after my body, especially my teeth and my hair
Not being healthier and trying harder at school

“If it's any consolation, there's a theory that people find it easier to die when their loved ones aren't around. They are ready to go but don't want to upset them so hang on until the coast is clear. I know of several people who were upset that a loved one died when they had left the hospital or even just gone for a coffee. But maybe that was why they died when they did - having that space, that freedom finally to let go. I mean this to be a comfort, so I hope it is.“

Cowbells is right. I was supporting someone who was racked with guilt because her husband died in hospital an hour or so after she left to go home. My priest said exactly what Cowbells has written

I regret giving up swimming to focus on netball. I could have gone much further with swimming than netball.....there were far more opportunities. It’s a “what could have been...” type regret.

Not getting on the property ladder when I was younger. I'm 29 now, have been in full time employment from 21 and should have gone for it when I was younger and it would have been easier to do. They don't teach you this in school!

Sunnysidegold., we wereall taught piano and 50 years ago my piano teacher was teaching a man of 83.

@sunnysidegold, there was a woman at my group piano/keyboard class who had recently passed her grade 3 piano, having only taken it up a very few years previously - she’d never even touched a piano before. I’d guess that she was at least mid 40s to early 50s.

Having always been too chicken even to think of exams, I admired her enormously. I took up the piano again after retiring - having only ever passed grade 2 at 10 or 11 and not touched a piano since, so virtually had to start again from scratch. Several years later I’m about G5 level.

Dating my ex. Ten years on he his still slagging me off. Whatever my faults in the relationship at least I never shouted in his face, isolated him from friends, read his messages, lied about him and had sex with him whilst he was asleep. But I'm the bad guy

And not taking a fantastic study opportunity due to said relationship.

@Chillychangchoo the police are completely derelict in their duty of care, I found articles from the 90s online where the government were taking responsibility & trying to figure out how to stop neighbours ruining neighbours lives. There have been murders & suicide because of neighbour disputes; antisocial neighbours, complete lack of building standards & noise insulation, etc. People just lie & sell their house so the next fool has to deal with it. Conflict of interests means that we all just have to live in this apathetic country & be grateful for our plate of porridge

@FilthyforFirth Good job on achieving your goals 🍓🌺🍒

Having two terminations, when I was 23 & 27. I have tokophobia & since the last one I developed Interstitial Cystitis so haven’t even been having sex with my poor long suffering DP. I’m now 38 & so sad that I’m also too poor to adopt. Wish I could afford surrogacy but that’s not ethically sound either so lethal for the best. Plus I promised
myself when I was little that I would never put a child through what I had to go through & I’m just convinced I would destroy their lives.

Err... not ‘lethal for the best’ I meant ‘perhaps that’s for the best’

Bookmarking to read later

Surprised to see so many other women have the same regret as me.

When I first went to uni I started a very academic degree at one of the best universities that should have led to at least an above average career. I struggled hugely with my mental health and fell into a deep depression which I have never fully recovered from. I returned to study in my mid twenties but did something very practical that I don’t particularly enjoy. It doesn’t have much by way of career progression and I hate that.

Now I have my own DD I am considering stopping at one child so I have the time and financial resources to retrain and be a good example to her. I wish I had got some help with my mental health and taken antidepressants back when I was 19.

Not having a nose job as soon as it would have been allowed. The difference it would have made to my confidence would have been huge. I have lots of other big regrets which on the face of it (intended) seem more serious but that nose job is the one I'd change.

Not walking out of my parents on my 18th birthday.

I left a good job 12 years ago because my DH didn't like it (it was male dominated), he earned well and so I thought it would be fine.

It is fine, I have had a lovely life but I still look back and think "what if"? I probably could have gone quite far and earned good money but now I am just a part timer in a dead end job. DH is the main earner and therefore makes all the big decisions (well, has the power of veto) and I have to fit my job around the DC.
I wish I had had the confidence to stick to my guns, at the time I was happy to leave my job. Perhaps I am just looking back with rose tinted glasses?

My biggest regret at the moment is that I am still there and it is not getting better.